Journey To The End
by angelofjoy
Summary: Erik's narative journey to the end of his life and the travels he takes and the things he discovers about himself.
1. Aftermath

Chapter 1: Aftermath.

What are years to me, when looked at in terms of days, months, hours, minutes? They simply pass me by. Seventeen years have passed me by and I have lived in a quiet state of mourning. I never ventured above the ground. I do not know what is going on in the world; how Paris has changed, if it has changed or even if things are better or worse. Who is the minister or who are the poor. I have had no desire to know any of it, anymore. I never walk through the halls of the great palace that I had, had a hand in building. I do not know if they have replaced the chandelier, what it looks like, if it is as over done as the first or if it is simply a mass of glass. None of this matter to me anymore because everything I had loved about it, all the beauty that was once there is gone. It is all gone forever.

There is no longer any music in it for me. I do not hear the bells or the violins as I once did. The dance does not appeal to me, the ballerinas have always been a bore and the singers do not sing with the grace, innocence or charm that I once witnessed in this building. It is nothing but stone; cold and unfeeling like the grave. It is a casket that I should have long ago given up my body to. It has taken my soul and keeps it, without any hope of redemption or peace.

Everywhere I looked I can see her. I can hear her voice and I can not escape the sorrow that I am feeling. She was always there, in the music I had written. Twenty years it had taken me to write Don Juan Triumphant and in a moment I had let it all go. She would have stayed with me. She could have chosen me. She had worn my ring and yet I let her go. I could not keep her. And now beauty is gone, song has no pleasure and colours grow dim, dull and fade to black.

Should I ever see the sun again I would not care. I would not know the warmth that it promises to the human race. I am not human. I am a monster; horrible in the eyes of all who know my legend. I am the ghost that everyone fears, even though I no longer lurk. There is no drifting through the flies or creeping through the darkness of the labyrinth that makes the mechanisms of the stage. I no longer whisper the words that once set fear and dismay upon a cast of characters whom I played the ringmaster too. I was once the puppeteer and each and every person was captive by my stings. Now, however, that is all gone and there is freedom for those who work here now, but not for me.

She is really gone now. The news has reached me before it has reached anyone else. Died of the fever as so many have done. Why cannot I die in such a way? The card came today, it is in his hand. It was the one thing I had been waiting for. I wasn't going to accept any other links with the world above. I through it into the lake and left it to dissolved in the murky waters. Yes, she has been returned to her maker and as for me, I cannot die. How I have waited for it. I have wanted it and wished for it, but it is my punishment to stay alive. Again I say, I am not human; human beings die, they return to the dust from whence they came, and I cannot. I have been cheating death all of my life, wishing to stay alive, to find the one who would sing for me alone and see me for the being that I truly am. I believed that there was good in my soul, that the music that I had made could not mean that there was nothing but corruption within me, but I have been wrong for so long, and now death will cheat me, mock me, and spurn me.

To see her wither and become what I am was once my greatest fear. She should never grow old. She should never be anything but the music that she sang, young, vibrant, beloved, all of the things that create joy in the hearts of man. Still she has left a beautiful corpse. She has died young enough that the bloom of her youth will be with her always. No one will ever see Christine as an old woman, but rather as the angel that had been stolen from heaven. She will never grow old, as my mother did. She will always be my beautiful Christine; the rose withered too soon, the song without end.

What is left for me now? The opera is dark and faded. The architecture of this place is being ruined by age and the stone is now in need of repair. It is strange to see something that nature had worked on to create, the rock that should stand the test of time, and yet it has grown old; like it can no longer weather the elements. Man had plucked it out of its natural state and it is just simply giving up the fight.

I had killed to build this building. The men and boys that labored over it were nothing to me as long as my vision of grandeur was realized. It is like me in a way. I have given up. No longer do I wish the weather the elements of the human mind. I wish to decay in the quiet solitude of the darkness of my tomb. But it is not here in this place. She had been here. She had kissed me here. All of these walls, my rooms, have her imprinted on them. I have seen her in this place and now when I close my eyes I can still see her. She haunts me now, the ghost that I have given up. Christine is here in all of her beauty, her voice ringing off the granite, torturing my soul and mocking me with the reminder that she had chosen Raoul. One day he too will die, and they will find themselves here in this place, for the bonds of love can never be broken, and he will one day haunt my palace as I had once done. There is no room for me now.

Paris has been soiled for me. My home land has seen me come full circle and as I should have died in the darkness of my secret home, I did not. My heart, thought tired, would not cease its beating, but it too has chosen to forsake me. She thought me dead. I knew I could not keep her and so I used another of my trick. I who was a brilliant magician, apothecary, ghost, I knew how to mix remedies and potions, how to kill in the ways of the poets. I faked my death and, though the seizures in my heart were real, they have stopped and my heart is strong again. Why has it not stopped beating, it is beyond explanation and yet it continues. I have begun to curse my own stupid body. Why should I not be privileged enough to die? Have I really been so wicked? I have stolen life from many men and yet I cannot take it from myself. The scares that I have inflicted on myself are healed now. The blood does not run out of my body as it should. I am a ghost living forever, and yet, I am tired, I am aging; I can feel time passing away from me and it turns my body into the body of an old man. I live on.

Perhaps there really is a God that is unable to relinquish his angels. Can I think of myself in such a way, I who had so strongly denounced a God for the masters of fire and brimstone? It was certain in my mind that my genius could be greatly wanted by such a creature as the devil himself, but alas, heaven will not take me. I am not able to die, or pass on to another life. I will not ever see heaven or live in the fires of hell. I am doomed to dwell always on earth. Is it God wishing for me to return? Am I to do bigger things in the name of God then those that know of what I have done in disgrace to the heavenly name?

I am stuck in this purgatorial life; between greatness and condemnation. I cannot have either. So what am I to do now? I put the question out to the great void. Guide me now, tell me where I should go, what I should do. I will erect monuments to your name. I will compose requiems and wedding marches. I just need the guidance that I seek. I will do anything that it takes to send me on my way. Take me home please. I beg to be free of this life. What is needed, in way of redemption, to take me away from this place and put into the afterlife?

Can I promise to no longer be wicked? Is the bitter urge left in me to kill? I cannot say. I have not had the urge for drugged hallucinations anymore. Nor do I think I should take pleasure ever again in anything, let alone taking the life from another. I have not wished to even look on another human being. But if I was faced with danger, would I be able to deny my instincts and let them kill me. Murder would be, for me, a way to die and yet I do not think I could give in so easily. I have never given in to defeat, well not by another's hand. I gave up Christine because I knew this was no life for a bird. I could not keep her caged, as I had never been fond of my cages. She had to go. I would fight. I would see the red before my eyes as I always have and I would be the fastest into the battle. I would kill again. But I do not think that is what God has intended for me. I do not wish to fight, for the voice of some greater good speaks to me. I am not to be taken in anymore by the violence of my own greed.

I sit here in this darkness and all I see, of my once normal life, is how abnormal I have been. Always, I shall never think of myself as ever able to live as a normal person because I am not normal and I never will be. I have very few possessions that I truly care about and those I have gathered around me. The rest I can leave. They are only things that will way me down. I have the money that is left of my great career and my even greater farce. It is time now to leave. I am but a memory now in the Opera Garnier, and now I have finally found the will to leave. I shall never return to the streets of Paris; to the sights of this place or the small town where I had been born. France holds nothing for me but negative memories. I shall leave. I will find my way as I will now turn to God. And so I here by swear, I will do Good for the rest of my days, or at least try. Take me now into the solitude of my pilgrimage for all I seek is to finally die.


	2. In the Beginning

1Chapter 2: In the Beginning.

I believe it to be true that people only really care to see what is different; otherwise, they are too lazy or preoccupied to see through the everyday. Human beings are a very vain and selfish sort of creature. You must look a certain way or face ridicule. If you are old, unattractive, but not disfigured, you simply pass through the rest of your miserable existence without being seen. I proved this to myself in my calculated departure from my home in the opera house. I had seen the change that could be made to my person by the artistic abilities of the dressers. By makeup and clothing and a mask that looked more like a face then ever I had, I was transformed into the old, unattractive creature that I had always felt like.

Hiding my white mask, among the few of my personal belongings, that I simply could not be parted from, I dawned the clothing of a worker, a simple peasant, saddled my horse and coved my head with a long shaggy wig. I covered this face with the face of an old man from a production, of an opera I did not care to store in my mind as a memory of any consequence, in which a young handsome tenor was transformed into a lowly, ugly peasant man and the audience could not tell the difference. I laughed at the thought that someone so handsome could be made to look like me. Perhaps I did have a very strong and aggressive hold on this place but even as time pass they remembered me and even though they did not give to this young man the horrible scares that I have always possessed he looked as terrible as I do. They make for themselves the remembrance of my mischief.

I set out in the early morning hours, just as the sun was rising and the peasant class was setting to their own meaningless work. The industries had taken complete control of Paris, but the revolutions, the poverty of the state and the grand mistakes of every leader, or party of leaders I had ever known, was well visible in the hunched and dying workers. It was still not a good time for the Parisian people. The sun could hardly break through the clouds of soot and smoke that filled the air.

The peasant class bustled and rushed about as if what they were doing was the whole world and nothing more. I suppose to people, of that kind, that is all they know, as all I have ever known was hate, and ugliness, and death, all they know is to beg for bread on a street corner. They ignored me and my mare as I made my way out of the city. This disguise has worked better then any I had ever tried before. It would lead me unseen, invisible almost, through all the public places, roads, village, cities, that I would have to travel through before I could find a place, a secluded, private place, where I could sit and melt away into oblivion, with no one knowing that I ever existed.

People would forget about the things that had happened, I hoped. I had been a ghost and now my legend would live on, only as such. It was the only bit of humor I had to keep me on my way. How it seemed strange at the time, but it was true, every great building needed a ghost and for long enough they had thought me just that. Now with my escape and their belief that no man could live this long, to them I seem so much older then I really was. Middle age had taken its hold upon me and I had done enough in my youth to merit death but I was not above sixty years of age and my health was good enough to keep me living. How I wished I was dead, it was certain that my ghost would reside forever in the Opera Garnier but my body cheated me still. I would live on.

A ghost was what I had been; now all I wished for was invisibility and the end. This was now the life I was searching for. I would now settle on the lowest I had ever settled for. I am a living corpse. That is what my body has always looked like, even in my youth I looked like I should have been dead, but here I am waiting for death to finally take over. In the ground is where this body belongs. It would have to come eventually. It had come to Christine and to the men I had killed and I was, after all, human myself, or at least I hoped I was. I had to believe that now. There was nothing left in my life to believe in, but death.


	3. To the South

1Chapter 3: To the South

My journey from Paris to the outer boarders of France was peaceful and uneventful. The weather was warm and the roads quiet and well worn. The woods and streams of my native land were enchanting and at times I had wished that I could remain where it was familiar, but I could not. Oh but the music I could have written, the trills of the keys in mocking of the beautiful birds that filled the skies and the sounds of the rolling waters, so percussive and yet so subtle in the vastness of the countryside. It was pleasing to me to finally hear the music again. It seemed to be in everything as I traveled along and the melodies I could see in my mind would have looked magnificent on paper. Oh the operas I could have composed in that time but I had scolded myself and would not allow myself to give up my destiny to the music again. I had given up beauty and cheerfulness to the final conclusion of my life. I was searching for that, not the music.

I sustained myself on a small amount of bread and a canteen of water that I had packed with me; I had never needed much, and stopped only to rest my mare. When I stopped to water my horse I would pick up whatever I could get, if I needed anything, and refill my canteen by the banks of rivers and lakes that were scattered around the country side. I did have sufficient funds to live out a very comfortable life and the money made up the bulk of my possessions. Had anyone known the amount I carried with me, I would have surely been robbed. In these hard times money was all that mattered and people did anything to get there hands on it. I had never really seen the great need for money as a method of survival. I enjoyed my income for the finer things in life. My methods of stealing and sneaking about kept me clothed and fed and I would use those same methods again as I traveled now, but I had money for finer things if ever I needed a place to settle and with my disguise I was sure that I would keep whatever funds I had on me far into my journey.

Darkness had always made my horse uneasy, especially on long journeys, and so at night, we rested. It was one of the first times, in all my life, that my life was as normal as the changing days. I lived it by the sun and was not ruled by the darkness. It seemed so strange to me and I was not happy with the time I lost by waiting through the nights, but it was a way to teach myself the patience I would need to wait out the last of my days. What did I have to loose by my waiting through the nights? There was nothing waiting for me. No performances to attend to. No little delights left in my wicked world. I would sit through the restless nights and pray, yes I prayed. I had learned the errors of my questionable beliefs. Although I did not know how or if it was worth anything at all I continued to speak to God in a way I had never done before. I prayed for forgiveness. Not from the men I had killed in cold blood, those I would never be forgiven for, but for the pain I had put my pour Christine through. I had been asking for this sin to be forgiven as long as the sun shown on my shoulders and I traveled the deserted roads. But now, in the darkness of the night, in the hollow of a weathered old tree, I now prayed for death.

I would not take my own life. I was too stubborn to do something as cowardly as that. I think I had always known that, even though I had once tried by self medicating and by cutting, I always knew I had never done enough to kill myself in those ways. Never would a rope find its way around my neck by my own hands. It had been an idea to cross my mind on many occasions and certainly it could have happened in many placed in the Opera Garnier but I could not bring myself to do it.

Still it was hard for me to adjust to the new life style I was living. My mind was always filled with the strange melodies that I knew would one day change the face of music forever and yet I could not bring myself to compose. The journey through my homeland brought even more songs into my heart and my hands itched to write it all down, to leave something behind for the musicians of the future to fine. It was no longer my place in the world to do anything for my own enjoyment and so I kept the music in my heart and offered the melodies of my secret desires to the Lord to whom I prayed.

I traveled on for many days, as a nomad, through this vast country I had lived in, for a good part of my life. To the north wars with Germany were still waged, and to the south more unrest; the stupid mistakes of a power hungry government were not likely to end at any time soon. I was heading for a place that I had always despised on mere principle, Spain. It was a country at odds with France and yet mainly ruled by the French dictators. It was now in a state of war against its oppressors. I believed in the destruction of a country torn by nationalism, the English lending a hand from Portugal and the French trying to keep their grasp on a large area of land with an oppressed population somewhere in the middle. I would either be killed because of my French heritage or because of my terrible disfigurements. Either way all paths lead to death and though I would not do it myself I would gladly put myself in the ways of someone else doing it for me.

Would I give willingly to being killed? I doubted that myself; I would fight tooth and nail till the bitter end. Would I fight in the name of France? What had my country ever done for me? No I would not be a military man, my methods were different. I would be the terror that so many people still believed in and though more would, inevitably, die at my hand, I would give in should I be asked to meet my maker.


	4. Arrival and Departure

Chapter 4: Arrival and Departure

To enter into a country that is not your own can bother even the strongest of men, but for myself, I had never feared the unknown. Why I was so hesitant to cross over the border was indescribable for me this time. Perhaps it was because I knew I would never go back. All it would take is a step and I was hesitant, but I went into a new country and I had thought it would seem so different but it was not. Nothing really was different on the outside; the sun still shone, the wind still blew and the birds still sang. Music was all around me, torturing me, but I kept on moving.

I was angry again at that very moment. I was angry because I had been so naïve to think anything would change. I was myself a creature of bad habits not the world and why I thought that just leaving my country for a new one would cure me of my pain was unbelievable, but I believed it would and it didn't. In that moment I wanted to turn around and head back. Back to the darkness of my tomb and wait because nothing in the world was different, but I had sworn to my escape and I left it all behind me. I would find the familiar in this new country because it was all the same. The people would see me in the same way and fear me in the same way, why I had believed otherwise was foolish and childish.

So I moved on, removing my disguise and becoming the man I had always been. I did not put the mask on my face; I let it rule my life. People that saw me cringed and backed away. I was left along and so I traveled onward. I was on a road that seemed hardly touched. It was not a trade road and was overgrown with summer growth. In a few years it would be one of the trails that led the invaders into Spain and years after that it would lead them out again; all this happened in the cycles of life and I would see that happen too but I did not know it as I ventured into my future.

I cursed myself all along that arriving journey because I had hoped for a new life and a new world for myself, but I did not deserve it and my journey made that clear as I passed more trees that looked the same and heard the same birds I had heard in France, but the farther I went the more little things changed and soon I was traveling along the sea and the smell of it captivated me and the sound of it was like the music that I had heard in my mind. Again the music filled my soul and it haunted me as I walked along beaches and roads that were soaked in sea air and felt the spray of the water on the hands and feet. It was in this time that I wanted to write and though I had brought the tools that I used to write with I would not pull them out of my belongings, but I did sit and hum and listen with all my heart on those nights when I rested.

Was this God talking to me in the most familiar thing I knew? Was it a lesson I was to learn? Where my ears and my heart open to that music and that peace then? No, they were not and I grew angry with every melody that came into my mind. I wanted to shout out to the world to make it all stop but it would not. So my punishment had long ago begun and I was facing it with every beautiful sound that I heard.

For many days I traveled, staying away from people and staying as close to the sea as I could, until I couldn't avoid human contact anymore. The cities on the ocean were where the densest population was and so I made my way into it and found within the city a world of just as much sorrow as I had left. The fashions were different the language foreign but the poverty was always the same. The people suffered because of the work they did, the living conditions they had and the filth that was building up in the cities. It made me sick to see it and as soon as I could gain a loaf of bread and some water I pushed myself out of the city and back into the quite beautiful country side were the air wasn't as thick and as putrid as it had been in the city. I changed my mind in that moment and decided that I would follow the sea and find my way to Italy.

As I made my way I realized that I would have to enter into my own country once more and follow it up the coast to Italy and I didn't mind. I crossed the board in a bound and never looked back. That had been enough of Spain, I was not happy with it and I would never go back to it in my lifetime.

Italy was my new destination and the hope that things would be different there filled me with anticipation for the views of such a country. I was pulled to Italy, it wasn't a very strong pull, but I had a little hope that in Italy I would find the peace and the comfort that I wish for. If I could find a place to pass away the rest of my days in solitary confinement alone I would be content. There had been a voice speaking on the melodies of the wind and in all of the songs that my mind heard that urged me onward to a place where I knew I would find some hope within a country that was built on Godliness. Italy held for me the remembrance of a place my mother had once spoken of. She had been devout in her belief of the divine and Rome was a place where she knew that holiness dwelled. I set my sight, though I did not believe I deserved a view of the holiness, on Rome and I would find it in Italy as I moved onward.


	5. Italian Revelations

Chapter 5: Italian Revelations

Italy may prove to be the best place for my captivity. There is so much turmoil that is taking place at this time that no matter how or where I move the people do not see me through their discontent. Even here, as I pass through towns and villages in this country of holiness, I see what technology and revolution has done. Poverty is a global issue, I am leaning this more as I move through the sunlight. To think that my problems were so very bad in my captivity, that which I had chosen, and now I see that there is more captivity in poverty then I had ever imagined. There is disgust and filth wherever I go and I feel for the people who wallow in it because there is no one to help them escape. I see people who look like me, deformed and distressed, and at the same time I am better off then any of them because I have money. There is no beauty in the pour, how blind I have been, and yet I lived thinking only of the beauty that I was without. Ugliness is more predominant than beauty and I am leaning this as I move through the world.

I found a woman, a beggar on the streets whose face was as disgusting as my own and she sang with sweetness in her voice, that I had never heard before. It made my heart weep to see her. She could have been an angel of music, one who would have dazzled audiences for years had she not been so very ugly. I took pity on that woman, for the first time in my life. I felt for someone other than myself and I realized that Christine was not who I had been thinking of all my life, but rather I had been thinking of my own selfishness. I have adopted this beggar woman. She has seen the horrors of my disfigured face but she does not fear me. Her hunger and her sorrow are far greater than her fears of my face or my history. I have given her bread and water. I have put her on my horse and I have taken her into my life. She is my companion now and though her language is not my own, we find a way to communicate with one another. I have known my share of Italian Opera and so I know of some of the things she is saying. I will learn her language as time passes, but I am determined that it is my duty now to protect her. Her name is Maria.

Will I find, in this place, the life that I want or, perhaps, the life that I deserve? I will admit, I am not looking to be accepted but I have found acceptance. I do not deserve such kindness, I am a killer and a tyrant, much like those who have come to power in this place, but I do have hope that I may find forgiveness, from whom I cannot say, but perhaps the almighty may take pity. Maria pities me. She is disfigured and has been all of her life, and yet she has beautiful eyes and a voice like the summer birds. I can hear in her the promise of a brilliant future but to see her is to know how unfair the world is. She would never be seen as anything but a monster and I feel her pain and she feels mine. I will protect Maria and we will find refuge in the grace of God as we move through this country on our way to Rome. She has not ever been away from the village where I had found her but she longs to be in Rome and I have promised to take her there. She is an old woman, but not as old as I am, we may both have plenty of time left. She still has the glow of her youth; it only took a man as ugly as she is to see it.

Even with her seclusion and the oddity that she is, Maria is a mystery to me. She is filled with hope and she learned so quickly. We understand each other and yet she does not wish for death. I have listed to her pray aloud as the sun sets and we rest for the night. She sings her prayers sometimes and I can hear many of the melodies that have been ringing in my own mind. How I could have found a person so connected and yet so different. I have begun to hear her prayers and make them as my own. I had never thought that I could wish to pray for anything but death, but now I pray for simplicity, for forgiveness and compassion. I am journeying with Maria in search of a forgiving spirit and she believes that if I asking the Lord to forgive my sins, all of my sins, then it shall be done. Maria is wise but I am not sure I believe everything she is saying. It seems too good to be true. So simple and yet there are wall around everything that she speaks of. Have I put up these walls for myself? Maybe it has been me all this time. I am my own wall and I need to open up to someone. Perhaps that is what this journey is all about, for I have lost sight of the reasons I left and I have found different meaning. Maria has given me hope were I had never had it before. She knows that I am a murderer, but she say that mankind is plagued with murder for reasons that they believe are right. She also believes that even those men have been forgiven because they have shown remorse and asked for forgiveness.

Am I remorseful? I don't know. I don't really regret what I have done, although I see more and more that I was wrong in believing that Christine was mine. She was not and I tried to force her into something that was wrong. Maybe I am feeling remorse. I should not have done what I did to get at Christine. She was young and I took advantage of her inexperience. That was wrong and I am sorry for it.

Maria has shown me the errors in my judgement. She is becoming more beautiful to me as the days pass. I do not see her disfigured face anymore, nor does she see mine. I only see her beautiful eyes and her wise spirit. She makes me want to give to her everything which is in my power. I want to make her happy. I believe I shall keep her.


	6. The Ancient Call of Rome

Chapter 6: The ancient call of Rome

Rome is magnificent. I cannot believe what I am seeing. The monuments of a world that has so long been extinct and yet they stand as sentinels of protection. I am in awe of the ghosts that dwell in the ancient buildings of this place, and yet, there is a spirit that falls over this city. There is a presence here that looms in the form of a greater city that shines like a beacon in the middle of it all. There is something of ghosts and spirits here, the remains of a long ago times, or Romans and empires that have changed the face of human history and there is a peace that comes over this city. The church bells toll with a song that can only mean a summoning to some and Maria prays with ever tone that is heard throughout the city.

There is a magic and a mystery in the music of this place, it leads you forward toward something else entirely. I have never felt such a pull before in my life time and it fascinates me, but I cannot say if it is a call to live or a call to worship. Even if it was, would I know how to worship after all of the years I have spent as a menace and a horror to so many who would claim to be believers. I want to know what it is to believe as so many do, as I see in Maria who has no reason to be hopeful because she had been poor all her life. I want to know what it is to be filled with the spirit, to have a prayer answered and to live in a peace that only forgiveness can bring, but I fear that that is impossible as I am such a horror and have been for so many years, and yet the bells toll and the song of so many worshippers swells within the city and her secrets. I hear a music that is purely of the heart and that encapsulates so many people. It is a wonder that such a sound could be raised and by so many voices. The small and weak and the large and strong, it is a beautiful combination of professionals and peasants. There is unity in the song like I have never heard and even for the flaws in the music my soul is pleased with the efforts that people put into the song. Why is it that so many people can give so much of themselves in the name of something that no one can see? Why is worship so strong? I can feel it and I can see it all around me, the worship and the belief, but I cannot understand it.

Maria longs to see St. Peters. We have visited churches along out rout through Italy, she ventures into them filled with something like hunger and she remains in them for long periods of time, and then she comes forth filled with something that is a mystery to me. I do not know what she does within the buildings, and I do not feel a need to enter into that world, but the architecture of this place and the peace that Maria brings out of them is fascinating. She becomes so docile and pleasant when she returns to me after her escape into these buildings. Perhaps she is speaking to the ghosts of her past, or maybe she really believes what is written in the book of Christianity, I cannot say, but I do know that it nourishes her in some form for she returns with hope that radiates from her and I can feel it. She speaks of forgiveness for sins that she has committed and I wonder what a poor, gentle, soul like hers could possible know of true sinfulness. I am a sinner and if she only knows what I have done she would flee, I am certain of that, but she speaks of her soul and the peace she is longing for. I understand her more and more each day and she understands me, and yet, I am confused. The smallest things that she calls sins are nothing to me; I would never feel sorry for some of the things that she sees as wrong and needing forgiveness for. They are small things like petty thefts to eat or trespassing to get out of the rain. These seem like necessities to me, like something that the human form needs to survive and yet she believes that she has done wrong. If people do not see it necessary to help the poor and provide for them at least food, water and shelter then one must take it or perish. I have asked Maria why she believes herself a sinner and she tells me that she is wrong in what she has done, but when I tell her that without food she would die, without water she would die and with out shelter form the elements she would die, she simples agrees with me and continues to beg for her redemption. I do not understand her.

I have decided to grant her this wish of seeing into the center of her religious realm. I will take her to Vatican City and I will leave her to her own devices. If she wishes to stay then I will leave her knowing that I have done something good for someone other than myself. If she does not want to stay then she can carry on searching with me, but I believe that if I do not take her to this wonder of the ancient city then I will regret something, like I have stolen something from this poor woman as I have stolen from so many over the years. Forgiveness seems to be the key to her living and if she believes that she may find it within the holy city then I will take her there. For now I will put myself on hold; the need for a place to live out the rest of my misery can be found once I have given to this woman her piece of peace and hope, then I will fulfill what is left for me.

Maria has captivated my heart and I feel like I would never be able to deny her anything. I am loosing sight of Christine and finally, after all these years, I don't mind saying goodbye to the girl for this woman who is like me in appearance but holy in her being. Maybe it is God's will that I have found her. She thanks God for me, I hear it in her prayers, and sometimes it is uncomfortable because I do not deserve such praise, but she is grateful and I am captivated by her gentleness and spirit. Christine is nothing in comparison to my Maria.


	7. Saint Peter's Square

Chapter 7: Saint Peter's Square

The woman took my hand and walked me through the gates of Saint Peter's Square. I had no notion of ever setting foot in such a place. I am unworthy of that which is good and just and yet, she would not let me go and I could not struggle against her and a part of me wanted to see what this place was all about. There was a magic far greater than even me at work within that place and Maria knew it and took advantage of it.

I was struck first by the beauty of everything that was around me; the peace that flowed from every person and the architecture was unlike anything that I had ever seen. I felt like I had stepped into a whole different time. It was nothing like my opera house, but it has something completely different. The opulence was there, it was grand, showy and clearly very rich but at the same time there wasn't the airs of that the opera had. Everyone that was present in the square was not there for a show, but rather they were there to find peace and comfort. There was undying devotion in everything that every single person did in that place. I was struck with awe and completely fascinated all at the same time. I wanted to know just how people of all different races, languages and age could believe so completely in the same thing and yet not understand each other outside of this world. For a moment I realized why there was such confusion in the world and yet I was questioning everything that I had once believed. My life of anti religious tendencies revolved around myself and what I really wanted, but in this place I learned that to so many there was something far greater. I knew that I would never see the world in the same way again. It fascinated and frightened me all at the same time and yet Maria walked onward into the throngs of people, her deformities nothing to the people that worshiped around her. For the first time I was acceptance for a person like myself because of what was in her heart rather than on her face. My world changed in a moment.

It was quiet within the square and yet there were hundreds of people all around us, poor and rich, young and old, all the world seemed represented in that city of holiness and peace and babble, though muffled, filled everyone's ears. There was a noise that calmed as people walked around, knelt and passed around and among each other. They acknowledged each other, smiled, prayed together without even understanding what was being said. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever witness. There was no difference between the weak or the poor and the rich or the young, everyone accepted everyone else.

Then I was struck by the song. There was gentleness in the music that came from somewhere; close and yet far away, perfect and yet completely different from anything that I had ever written. My interest was peaked. At first I though I heard a distant organ droning on then it was something like violins and then trumpets, but as I scanned everyone and every corner of the square I did not find a single instrument, but the music was present and other people knew it. I followed the crowd that moved along with the music and it became closer and more distant all at the same time. It was leading the throngs of people forward and then I could feel myself rising with them.

The melody was simple and yet it was played with conviction and passion. I was drawn to it as I had always been called to the music. I had never thought that I would hear or enjoy music as I once had. Again it had been all about me and this melody, the sounds of the voices joined together and the instrument that sounded unlike any that I had heard before played on calling my soul to it. I was lost in the angelic songs of praise that I had gone so long without. I let myself go with the music. No one else in the world mattered anymore but I was holding Maria's hand. I don't know when I took hold of it but I had, and I pulled her along with me. She didn't seem to mind and followed me blindly and I followed the music into a world I never understood but was willing to see with open and passionate eyes.


	8. Leaving the Past Behind

Chapter 8: Leaving the Past Behind

The music led me onward, people moved around me but it was easy to stay in the path of the music. I found myself standing above the crowded square and heading into one of the buildings. As I looked back to contemplate my actions, Maria squeezed my hand and I was brought back into a different world. She looked at me with longing; a desire beyond what I could understand and she moved forward with the crowd that entered into the most famous house of worship in the world.

Within the basilica I was struck once again by the beauty of the masters who devoted their talent to this place of worship. From floor to ceiling there is evidence of how greatly moved so many people were by this word and this spirit that believers worship, but there is also a feeling that follows you in this place. I couldn't help but hear the voices within me asking for forgiveness. I saw before my own eyes the wrongs that I had done and I heard the crying of my soul for forgiveness and acceptance. Maria knelt by my side and prayed and I could not help but join her. I felt her reach out and touch me and we knelt together with so many other all around us and I felt the prayer that was coming from all of these people was my own. I felt unity in one moment and then I understood what powers that this spirituality and pure belief really had. I learned to pray and I realized that I had prayed much of my life but in a completely disillusioned way.

My forgiveness is a long time coming but I believe that I have finally put myself on the path of some form of redemption. Maybe, just maybe, my flight from the land of my birth was not my escape but a whole new education that I was put on a path to find. Perhaps it was my Lord calling out to me in ways that I could not hear but that I was ready to learn. Maria, the basilica, all of the pilgrims that had migrated to this place were the lessons that I was put on the path to learn and I was learning them with every whispered word, with every action of faith and with every realization that the spirit moved within me. I was ready to ask for forgiveness, not just hope for it and Maria had witnessed this in me. I had not been set on the path to find her but rather she was sent to me, like and angel from heaven, I was meant to find this woman, to love this woman, protect and comfort her, and she in return would teach me to pray, to be thankful, and to listen with a changed heart and an open mind.

Then the music started again, filling the space in a way I had never heard. The acoustics in my home were of my creation, as were those in the opera house. My mind had worked in those spaces in my youth and I had taken great pride in how everything sounded around me. I had thought my creations perfect, that music would never sound any better then it did in those spaces, but I was wrong. Here in the basilica, though I did not know the physics of the space, made the music sound more beautiful and alive then I had ever been able to make it. There was passion in the space as well as in the singers and the way the music was produced from their bodies. It was not work, as it was in my world, but rather worship and I wanted to feel it in the same way. I closed my eyes and listened with every fiber of my being and soon I could hear, not just from the choir of voice but from all of the people around me the sound that I had only ever been able to imagine. Maria sang at my side in a language that was not her own, but of a song that she knew all the words and that had come from her heart. I vowed in that moment to write again. I was ready to devote my talents as God was calling me to do, to making music of praise. I would fill my life with the songs of my soul, the songs that had been placed there and I would make the music for Maria and I would make it for millions of people, not just those who came to my opera house and listened to those who worked for the music but never lived the music. My eyes and ears were opened and my heart had already started to fill my mind with melodies I had never imagined before.

My mind had been made up. I had come on this journey to find the end of my life, to leave behind everything that I had done and to find and wait for death. But I had found life, or a life I had never imagined for myself. I no longer wanted to sit passively by and wait to die; I wanted to redeem myself and life to praise God. With Maria I believed that I could find happiness and calm. I would not live a life of work and evil but a life of passive contentment. I was growing older, I knew and yet for the first time I felt young at heart, like I had been reborn. I didn't distain my old life, I felt sorry for what I had done and I was prepared to pray for forgiveness. I would return now and make amends for what I had done. The music was visible in my mind. I would write it and leave it for those whom I had hurt and then I would live on in this peaceful way writing and living. All that I had done was now behind me and life spread out before me filled with hope and the want of a life beyond the confines of my world.


	9. The World is Ugly

Chapter 9: The world is ugly.

Maria and I spent most of our day within the safety of the Vatican walls. Our souls were nourished and I had learned what to do, how to pray and I wanted to know more of the newfound faith that I had always seemed to have but never known how to acknowledge it. We did not leave that safety until later in the evening and it was my desire to do all that was in my power to find a safe place for Maria and me to live and be happy. I wanted to stay as near as I could to Vatican so that I might be able to feel the way I felt on this day often. Maria has also been so content and peaceful there that I wanted to be able to give her that all the time and make it easy for her to renew her pilgrimage. But sadly, we would not be accepted as easily into the world. I had been blinded by the perfection of such a place and feeling and our situation was restated to us as we moved openly though Rome on our departure from the holy city. I started to notice the stares and the cringes before Maria but it wasn't long before our ugliness brought on the scorn of the world. A young man had pointed us out in the crowded evening streets as I looked for a place that would afford us shelter and nourishment after our day of fasting. His vulgarity brought the notice of many more people and soon we were the center of such censure that Maria covered her face in shame and shrank into the shadows. I felt the rage of year burning within me again, had I had with me the tools of my past the stupid fellow would have met with a swift and very public demise but the voice of some new conscience scolded me for my thoughts and I knew where it had come from. I felt guilt and pity for the fool that made such a scene in a city that should have relished in our unfortunate situation but I realized that the human condition would always been seen by those who are blinded by the exterior.

I moved slowly along the dark allies with Maria, once we had been able to free ourselves from the crowd and disappear once again. I found a small stall that offered bread and wine and we were able to eat and drink our hunger away but the incident after so much peace had greatly affect my Maria and my heart ached as her tears flowed and her words were words of pray. I felt in that moment that it was not I who had been ugly but that the world was far worse then I had ever imagined. I longed for the safety of my hidden spaces and the richness of my former situation. Was there anything that was stopping me from returning to my home, for that was how I saw it again, and I longed for the comfort of the building that I had helped build up from nothing. I realized that I would be more productive if I would be able to settle this woman in one place and show that her ugliness was nothing to worry about when safety and security were offered to her. She and I had started to understand each other and I pressed the matter as well as I could until she gave me the satisfaction of accepting my offer. I would lead her through this dark time in her life and place her within a realm of richness and calm. I realized that I could give her so much more then she had probably ever been accustom to having and my heart acted to be able to take her away from the horrors that she would have felt.

Relatively speaking, aside for the deformities of her face, Maria was a slim woman, she had every likeness of the women that would have come in to my theatre and partaken in the pleasure of the opera. I wanted to give to her the fine clothing, the warmth of the richness and the surroundings of music and culture that she would not have known. I build before her the ideas of such opulence that I had so long looked beyond myself and I realized that I had a very good situation within the walls of the opera house. I gave to her all the particulars of the life that I could offer and still she seemed reserved. She didn't want opulence but rather the safety of acceptance and I could give her that. She wanted, more then anything, a companion, understanding and trust. I wanted to hold her, love her, and keep her close to me all the time. She wasn't happy about my ghost like background but I assured her it afforded her the freedom she probably was not used to and I would leave her in want of nothing for the rest of her living days; she agreed and so it was settled.


	10. The Way Home

Chapter 10: The way home

I have decided to take Maria home, not to her village, but to a place that I realize will always be my home. She has agreed to come with me. I have promised her beauty and solitude but I have also promised her sunlight and music. We have come to compromises. I would have stayed in the dark, but she needs the light, the churches and the fellowship. She admits to wanting to see Paris and I am more than happy to oblige her. Why I am so interested in this woman was huge in the beginning but I have come to realize that I love her. She is what I have been looking for all my life. She is like me and yet she is so very different and she will be the means for my understanding and acceptance. I will give her everything that I can, all that is good about me and within me and she will teach me how to be good in return. I have learned so much from her already and I feel like she will be the turning point in my life. If it isn't that, then at least she has given me a want to live the rest of my days rather then wait idly to die.

We are to return to the Opera Populair but not before I have promised her my dignity and my soul. I will marry this woman and my life will change for the better. Happiness is what we both wanted and we will find it where I have always known it, in my home land, Paris. To think about it now I have been happy before but I have been selfish all my life. It is why I have done all the things that I did in my life. I now feel it ardently and want only to do what I can to make Maria happy. I thought about marriage once, I thought it could only be with Christine. That she was the only person in the world to make me happy but now I see that I was not thinking of her. Maria and I could be happy together, I think, I want to know that she is happy. I want to see her happy. I want to make her life better. I will marry her and we will return to the place of my past. I will seek forgiveness where I can and I will write my music to keep myself and my wife from falling into the poor house.

There are far too many terrors in the world today and Maria has lived through it. War is brewing in our country and all through Europe. I do not know what will happen in the streets of Paris but I believe that I may find solace and protection deep below ground where I have hidden and so I hope that my Maria can understand that I will do my best to keep her safe and shelter her from the dangers that are coming. I want to believe that these conflicts will be over quickly but I doubt that because I have seen the terrors of war and what the human conditions does in times of struggle. Therefore we will travel as quickly as we can manage without being seen and I will take her to the darkness of my labyrinth. We will be safe and happy there and the music will come back to my life. Though the world falls into turmoil I believe that I may finally find the happiness that I have always truly sought.


	11. Marriage and Monuments

Chapter 11: Marriage and Monuments.

I married Maria in the village of her birth. She was well known in the parish which had been her captor and her solace for all of her life. The priest was shocked when we first requested sanctuary from the elements of the stormy night which brought us back. No one saw us arrive but the few that had been held in the church through the storm were shocked to see my face. They had looked all their lives, on Maria as a monster and I felt for her deeply as she lowered her eyes to their stares. She was not used to hiding her face as I had been but she was continually hurt by their stares and their ill judged words. I professed my intentions to the priest, held my head high while speaking my mind and used all that I had learned in the way of propriety to prove to those who stared and mocked me that I was not going to put up with their scorn. Maria began to be more proud with every word I spoke and she soon stood with her head held high. Every woman has the right to her dreams, no matter how they look or what has become of them, and I was ready to give that to her. She had confessed on our return journey to feel a true love and admiration for me that she knows that I could feel her pain and that one day, we would be happy in a quiet little life together. I confessed that my reputation may frighten her when we returned to the opera but that I was capable of taking care of her and providing for her a better life then she had ever had.

The priest took very little convincing when told that Maria would be leaving the parish and I felt deeply that such a man should not have such a terrible prejudice against a woman who was born to a very difficult life, but never had the means to make her way in the world. I scolded him for such feeling but assured him that he would never again have to look on our ugliness. I could see the shame that had come over him and knew, when the time for the service came, that he had spent some time repenting his ill-judgments. The service was short, the first act of the priest was to perform my baptism and as the water ran over my deformities I felt cleansed by the spirit and believed that I would finally participate fully in the faith that Maria had promised to teach me. Then we were married. There was a sparkle in my Maria's eyes as we vowed ourselves to one another and it was one of the most beautiful moments I had ever experienced. I saw in her more beauty and peace then I had ever seen in a singer or a dancer. The music had little meaning in my life before this time and this great journey I had undertaken but from that moment on everything in my life was precious. I did not think of death in the way that I once had, I even feared that it would cut my time with Maria short, but I wanted to be happy and that day my prayers had been answered.

We moved on again that very same night. Our traveling clothing was plain, Maria and I did not prove too much for my horse and we moved onward day by day in the same fashion. As the hours passed and the nights turned to day we ate, we rested, but we did nothing more then travel. I was waiting for the time when I could carry my wife over the threshold of a true home. It may have been unconventional, deep below ground, but it would be a home for us and that was where our marriage would truly begin.

The more time we spent together, the more we came to understand each other. Her language was no longer so very foreign to me and mine was becoming her own. We talked of the things we hoped to achieve in our future, I had not ever believed myself capable of such hopes, but they all made me very happy and I wanted to give to her everything she wanted.

Our progress to the north was not as slow as my initial journey had been. I did not know where I was going, I did not have a destination when I first started but in returning I knew exactly where I was going. The boarders of our countries were growing harder to cross in the heightened unrest but we were able to find our way back into France and once there Maria became fascinated with every town and monument we passed. I built up her excitement by telling her all that she would soon see in one of the richest more modern cities in all of Europe. Paris was known as the city of love, we had been ruled by a king of high opulence and grandeur and what remained was stunning to behold. She was not disappointed when she first saw the city that I have called home for most of my life. I brought her through the main centers by the light of a glorious moon and she marveled at Notre Dame, the river and all that passed in the most fashionable parts of the city.

When at last we came to the Opera she was stunned into a silence that worried me. The building loomed before us and for a moment she stopped and stared. I took her by the hand and led her to the ally that passed behind the theatre and to a part of the yard where the stables continued to be settled and the darkness hid many of the opera's nooks. It provided for us the secrecy we needed to return to the place that many months before I had left believing I would never see again. Among my belongings I had kept my mask, it had been with me as a reminder but I had never worn it. As I pulled from my pack parchment and a red crayon I saw once again the mask that had been such a part of me and yet Maria had never seen it. I wrote a hasty note to the stable master to take care of my horse as he often did and he would find the payment as was usually owed in the usual location. I assured him that box five would once again be frequented by the ghost and he was given instructions to make the managers once again aware of my presence. Maria laughed at the language I used in the letter but felt awe for the way in wish my pride and my authority ruled over the opera. I pulled the mask from within my pack and I placed it in her hands as I returned my red crayon to its location. She held it as if it was but a fragile child and looked at me without fear. I had told her before of my troubles but that for her I would not hide my face. In that moment she reached out to me, kissed me, and placed the mask on my face. 'You return as the phantom,' she said in a whisper, 'the mask is beautiful, it suits you.' Her eyes sparkled with love and my heart melted for her. I could not help but smile. She in turned asked that I form for her a mask of the same quality but she assured me that she would not wear it when we remained alone together. 'I want to be as proud and as prodigious as you," she had said 'I too will be the phantom.' And so it was done. I led her through the labyrinth to the home I had promised and we remained within for many days before venturing out into the theatre. We came to rest, to be together, and to marvel in our newly married status, but it was not long before we both began to lurk throughout the shadows of the Opera Populair.


	12. The Journey

Chapter 12: The Journey

When looking back at the progress that I have made throughout this journal I see the negativity of my ways and the selfishness that I have always possessed. Let it be known that I have changed greatly since I retreated and searched for death. I have been taught to love and my wife has shown me things that I had never before understood or imagined. I have nearly forgotten about Christine and the times that we spent. I do not see her anymore but only Maria. My Maria has the voice of an angel and my song is for her and our Lord. I have learned to pray, be positive, and hope for the future. My world has become so much larger with her in it and I am happy.

We are now as familiar with the opera as to loose each other in it only to fine our way back to our home and the safety of one another. The managers know that there is another with me now. A woman haunts the theatre and many of the patrons have seen us together in my box. The operas are fascinating for my beloved, she enjoys the high society she witnesses, loves the feel of the gowns and the jewels I have provided to adorn her with and wears a mask, much like mine that makes her radiant with pride. I see the touch of beauty in her features and her face and the eyes that smile back at me from behind the mask and I know that I have found a person who completely understands me.

We are very comfortable now and though the world outside is crumbling we are safe and protected, living every day to its fullest and bringing light into the darkness of our lives. I am still feared among those who ramble through the theatre but now so is she and we find amusement in it. I have seen a great change in my Maria, and it makes me laugh to see the haughty woman she has become, able on a whim to appear and frighten and then disappear in the same moment. There is playfulness about her and the Opera has become her playground and when she smiles at me I can see in her every secret and every betrayal of her happiness that she may wish to conceal and it melts my heart every time.

Our life has not been confined completely to the theatre. We venture out for Maria to see the city and we have found a small church where we are able to pray and receive the sacrament of the Eucharist together. The priest who presides there is far kinder then that whom we met in Maria's village and he has welcomed us into his faith community. I have come, very recently, to understand that there are good people in the world who will accept us for whom and what we are. I have found much in the way of faith and happiness with my God my creator and Maria is pleased with how far I have come. We stroll by the river at dawn and at dusk and are happy to be able to go out or stay in if we must. The world is changing very quickly all around us, but we have settled into our life together.

Maria and I passed Raoul on one of our walks and he stopped and stared into my eyes and then his gaze passed on to my wife. I could feel the fear radiating off of him and then I felt my Maria's eyes upon me. She spoke before any other discomfort could be had. 'You are Raoul de Chagny I believe,' she asked in a voice that was very Italian and yet which held a reality of the French in which she addressed him. 'I am,' he answered her, 'and you are?' 'I am Madame le Fantom,' she smiled and I could not help but feel a great pride in her. 'Can you not tell?' she laughed in a friendly and very carefree manner. 'I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Madame,' he said to her and actually bowed. 'I congratulate you sir, on your happiness,' he then said addressing me. I could not help but thank him. The fear was still present within him, and he seemed to struggle with a want to run and to engage in further conversation. I could not help but be pleased with my wife. I tipped my hat to him, thanked him for his kindness and we walked on into the shadows. There was much contentment to be had in such a meeting and yet I was reminded of my past. I will never escape it, nor will I ever forget it, but I believe that somewhere along the lines I will be forgiven for it.


	13. The End

Chapter 13: The End

And so it has come to be. I live where I have always lived but the difference now is that I am happy in the changes that have come upon me. I still think of Christine and all that I have done in the past, but I beg my Lord and Savior for forgiveness. Maria has made me the happiest of men, something I had never given myself the opportunity to believe in but I have been blessed.

Everyday is a new blessing for me and my wife. We are growing old together and though we do not have a care in the world we speak very fondly of what is to come in our future. I continue to write, she continues to sing, we have seen my operas performed in the theatre where we live and the hymns have been sung at the grand and admired Notre Dame. My journey has proved to be as filled with ups and downs as any normal person. I am pleased to say that even through I once believed that everything would fall away around me I now see everything and its changes. I will grow old, I will die, and my legend will live on.

I have a legacy now, and I am happy to say that he was born with a face untouched by tragedy. I may not live long enough to see him grow into manhood but my wife is young enough and healthy enough that I have no doubt of her being able to raise the child. I will hold onto life for as long as I can, for I finally have something to live for.


End file.
